Nothing's Changed in the Way We Raise Sons; Girls' Added Risk

Published: July 21, 1994

To the Editor:

Your July 10 front-page article on teen-agers seems to assume that growing up male or female involves similar experiences. Teen-age girls are subject to all the problems you mention, but there is an added dimension of vulnerability due to gender, according to recent research:

* Among adolescent girls, 22.7 percent had someone physically threaten them at school.

* Sixty-five percent were touched, grabbed or pinched at school.

* Thirty-three percent didn't want to go to school because of unwelcome sexual attention.

* Of reported rapes, one-sixth are of girls 12 to 15 years old.

* For one-third of girls, the first sexual experience is forced.

* There are 1.5 million teen-age abortions a year.;

* One in 10 teen-age girls becomes pregnant.

* One in 7 carries a sexually transmitted disease, and many will become infertile as a consequence.

Boys and girls grow up with distinctly different vulnerabilities, and treating the two genders as equivalent in risk leaves our daughters to fend for themselves. We need far less politics and philosophy in raising our girls and a good deal more guidance and protection. LAUREN K. AYERS Albany, July 11, 1994 The writer, a psychologist, is the author of "Teenage Girls: A Parent's Survival Manual."